in paris by morning
by Sowing Poppies
Summary: AkuRoku. The whole world is crumbling. Axel picks this time to fall in love.


_A/N: Written for SuddenChangeofHeart, a gift for the holidays. Tweaked it a little bit. It is still his._

* * *

[in paris by morning]

Roxas isn't like any of the other kids in class.

When the teacher announces that school will be out, forever, he doesn't cry or laugh or even blink at the news. He just sits in his chair with his face tilted towards the window, like he has already moved to a safer world inside of his head.

Axel is too busy watching Roxas's non-reaction to notice that Larxene is slowly gravitating towards his desk. There is a strange nervous smile on her face, a spark of anxiety that makes her pale cheeks flush pink. He almost doesn't recognize her when he finally does look up.

"Hey," Larxene says, reaching out to take his hand.

He moves his arm away absently and grins at the flicker of anger that clouds her expression for a split-second of familiarity. "Hey, Larxene," he mumbles. "What, do you wanna do the whole teary goodbye thing too? Because the last time I checked, I'm still a dude. And uh, you're pretty fucking close to being one, so - "

Larxene slaps him on the face and walks away. Axel feels (selfishly) grateful that some things never change. Even though all the scientists have predicted an apocalypse for this Sunday, and even though his best friend just tried to make a move on him (he didn't know she even _had_ hormones).

He glances over at Roxas's desk again and catches Roxas smiling distantly at something outside of the window. Or maybe at something only Roxas can see.

_The world is going to end in seven days,_ Axel thinks, resting his chin on his palm.

And,

_I don't think I'm ready for this.  
_

7.

On the last Tuesday of the world, Axel stumbles into the kitchen sleepily, still wearing his pajamas. School ended forever yesterday and there is no reason to get dressed anymore. It takes him a moment to notice his mother hunched over at the kitchen table, gripping a radio tightly to her chest.

"Please," she coos, stroking a plastic dial. "Tell me something nice will happen today. Tell me my husband will come back."

The radio sputters out garbled words and broken bits of static. All the stations stopped broadcasting news weeks ago.

"Mom?" Axel says.

"Something," she begs, and now there are strands of messy hysteria tangling up her words, pitching her voice high and angry. "Just give me _something_, dammit. I need – I -"

Axel slips out the back door and her screams follow him to the end of the deserted block where he ducks into a small playground to hide. The air feels heavier without shrieks of laughter and chanted jump rope rhymes, but everyone is at home with their families where they belong.

Everyone except for the boy sitting on the swings.

Roxas glances up when Axel approaches. His dirty sneakers are trailing patterns in the sand and his eyes look wide and oddly exposed under his messy bangs.

"Hey," Axel says, jamming his hands into his pockets. A heat creeps into the back of his neck and he pretends that he doesn't know what it means.

Roxas tilts his head to one side a little, like a bird.

"We're uh, in the same class," Axel says. "I don't think we've talked that much before, but - "

"I remember you," Roxas says. His voice is softer than Axel remembered. Their last oral reports were months ago and Axel is pretty sure that he had been the only one paying attention to the way Roxas bit his lip and fumbled over the complicated names of dead people while the rest of the class tried not to fall asleep.

"Oh." Axel shifts from foot to foot. The silence is stifling but not unpleasant on his skin. It reminds him of old family gatherings and thick, woolen sweaters. "Um. That's awesome?"

"Why are you here?" Roxas asks, and somehow the question doesn't come out sounding impolite. Just vaguely curious and distant, wrapped in clouds._  
_  
"What about you?" Axel says.

Roxas stares up at the sky. It is the same lonely shade of blue as his eyes.

"I want to be outside when it ends," Roxas says.

Axel understands.

He sits down on the sand and watches Roxas push off and swing higher and higher, until his beat-up shoes almost touch the sun.

6.

"Never thought I'd make it this far," Axel mumbles, stretching out on Roxas's bed sheets. The fabric is worn and soft and patterned with little dotted stars on a faded night sky. He presses his cheek against it and breathes in the scent of old laundry detergent, something disappointingly similar to his own bed at home.

Roxas looks up from the stereo. "Should we have gone somewhere else instead?" he asks.

Axel blinks, but Roxas has already turned away to arrange a pile of CDs spread out across the floor. His bony fingers are trembling as they open a cracked plastic case and snap it shut, matching old album covers with scratched CDs. Organizing his room at the end of the world is a little messed up, but Axel isn't one to judge.

"Nah," he says. "It's just that, girls usually make me wait a century before they let me into their bedrooms. I guess they're worried people will think they're sluts or something. Hell_, we _haven't even gone on our first date. This is like, really fucking awesome."

Roxas smiles at him and Axel has to wonder if he understands the joke at all.

"I'm not that funny," Axel says. "Actually, I'm just kind of an asshole."

Roxas walks over and sits down next to him on the squeaky mattress, folding his hands carefully on his lap and keeping his gaze glued to his interlaced fingers. They are sitting close enough together for Axel to wonder if this means something.

"I've never invited anyone into my room before," Roxas says, tipping his head back to look at the ceiling.

_I like you more than I probably should_, Axel thinks, but keeps his mouth firmly shut.

5.

With no one around to point or call them faggots, Axel doesn't mind sleeping in Roxas's bed. He thinks that any man-code they're violating probably doesn't apply at the end of the world.

"You'll get bruises if you sleep on the floor," Roxas tells him, shifting over to make enough room for one more skinny body. Axel climbs in.

It doesn't feel anything like sharing a bed with Kairi or Selphie or Olette. There is no guilty hope for harsh kisses, fluttering touches, or dirty sheets in the morning. It is just two boys lying side by side on the same mattress. It is just like the sleepovers Axel used to have as a little kid before older boys made those feel pathetic.

"Truth or Dare," he says, for the hell of it, like he really is eight years old.

There is a long silence from Roxas's side of the bed. Axel can't tell if Roxas fell asleep or is trying to ignore him. Sometimes Larxene would pretend he was invisible when he was being particularly stupid, and he isn't too bothered by being brushed off.

"Truth," Roxas finally whispers, and Axel tries not to let his surprise show in his body language. The bed is small and their limbs are touching. Roxas would notice.

"Um," he says, thinking up an easy question. "Okay, if you could visit any place in the world, where would you go?"

He expects to hear somewhere a little strange, like Atlantis. Or Mount Olympus. A place that fits Roxas's into dreamy mind and soft smiles.

"Paris," Roxas says. "I've always wanted to see Montmartre."

"Oh," Axel says.

His dad took him to Paris once when he was seven. He remembers cigarette smoke curling in the air and drizzling gray skies, watching people pass by his hotel window carrying umbrellas every color of the rainbow. His dad was always talking to some important client on the phone so they hadn't left the room except to eat at the restaurant downstairs.

"I heard Paris is nice," he says, for lack of anything better to say. Now he wishes he could have seen the city for real. It feels like an important place to visit before the end.

Roxas nods and twists around so they're facing each other in the dark. "And you?" Roxas asks, and Axel can feel his breath, hot on his skin. "Where would you go?"

(Anywhere but here. Anywhere but this planet. Anywhere we still stand a chance and nobody has to die on Sunday.)

Axel opens his mouth to answer but Roxas shifts so he ends up with his nose buried in soft hair, tickling, before Roxas moves away with a whispered apology.

He says, "Actually, I think I'd just stay here."

4.

On Friday, they drop all of the clocks they can find off of the tallest building in town.

3.

Sunlight slips in under the blinds and creeps across the floorboards and Roxas is sprawled on the ground wearing an old band t-shirt and faded jeans. His blue eyes look like they are seeing into another world and the bones in his fingers feel thin and hollow when Axel takes his hand and pretends to read his fortune.

"You will run into a tall, hot, mysterious guy who will sweep you off your fucking feet. Also, this line on your palm means you will get laid."

Roxas laughs and says, "Then you need to hide. I don't want him running away."

"Jesus, that was _cold_," Axel says, trying to remember all those times he watched Roxas laugh at a cheesy joke or write answers on the chalkboard with his left hand, forming each crooked letter carefully, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

He wonders why he didn't talk to Roxas back then.

"I don't think there is enough time for us to fall in love," Roxas says suddenly. His eyes are serious and a little sad. "Tomorrow is Sunday."

Axel swallows hard and curls his hand around Roxas's slim wrist, resting his thumb against a pulse point. Feels it flutter beneath his touch like a startled sparrow.

"I can try," he says, hoarsely.

Roxas's eyes soften and he has to look away, out the window, to an empty stretch of blue sky.

2.

On the last day of the world, Roxas points to a closed door in the hallway and says, "My parents went down there two weeks ago. They wanted to get it over with early so they brought a bottle of wine and some sleeping pills with them."

"My mom thinks my dad's still alive," Axel says. "I don't think she notices that I'm over here and not at home."

Roxas slips a hand into his and squeezes hard. There are still a million things they don't know how to put into words.

"This isn't fair," Axel whispers, harshly. "We shouldn't have to go through this, it's - it's fucking - "

"It'll be okay," Roxas says. His blue eyes are clear and bright under the flickering kitchen lights.

Axel bites his lip and wonders what it would be like to kiss him.

1.

There is a light on the horizon.

The night sky is being bleached white and the landscape is losing color and the wash of light won't stop advancing, an inevitable swell of blinding _white_.

Roxas grips his hand and Axel thinks,

_Someday, we'll go to Paris and fall in love under clouds of cigarette smoke and gray skies._

"Hey, Axel," Roxas murmurs, pulling him down, closer. "Axel, listen. This isn't going to be the end of us. It won't be."

"Yeah," Axel says.

Someday, they will get this right.

0.

Their hearts are beating loud enough to drown out the sound of the ground crumbling beneath their feet.


End file.
